Description
The Brill Building is an 11-story office block at 1619 Broadway and 49th Street, just north of Times Square, that became the best-known address of the American music business. Its name ended up labeling a whole style of 1960s pop.
Built in 1931 and a city landmark since 2010, it filled with music publishers and their song pluggers, who pushed new tunes to bandleaders and radio stations. By 1962, 165 music businesses worked inside.
The Brill Building sound was the pop of songwriting teams such as Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich: "The Loco-Motion" and "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" came out of that world.
The label is only half true: many of those hits were written a block away, at 1650 Broadway. The name comes from Maurice Brill, a haberdasher who ran a shop on the ground floor and later bought the building.
Built in 1931 and a city landmark since 2010, it filled with music publishers and their song pluggers, who pushed new tunes to bandleaders and radio stations. By 1962, 165 music businesses worked inside.
The Brill Building sound was the pop of songwriting teams such as Gerry Goffin and Carole King, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, Jeff Barry and Ellie Greenwich: "The Loco-Motion" and "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" came out of that world.
The label is only half true: many of those hits were written a block away, at 1650 Broadway. The name comes from Maurice Brill, a haberdasher who ran a shop on the ground floor and later bought the building.